The villain has the hero at his mercy, surrounded by armed goons. Does he just shoot him? Of course not. Does he take the hero prisoner to be strapped into an improbable torture device? No, not that either.

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In the Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch anime, when Caren enters Gaito's castle, he invites her for dancing and partying with Noel and Coco, the kidnapped princesses she was going to rescue. It's a trap, of course, the real Noel and Coco being stuck in People Jars in his throne room, while these two are actually Mimi and Sheshe. Nice thought, though.

The Manga kind of had this I think, except the real Noel was with them, she winds up being nabbed though just like before.

Gundam Wing uses this in the Endless Waltz OAV's, when Relena is kidnapped and then treated like a queen by Mariemeia Kushrenada and her group.

In the Houshin Engi manga, Choukoumei invites Taikoubou and Suupuushan to dine with him before testing if Taikoubou is worthy of being his rival with a fight against his sisters.

In D Gray Man, Tyki invites Allen and his friends to sit down at the huge table and dine with him. Pity that none of them feel like eating, what with the whole place slowly disintegrating which would eventually lead to them dying.

A variant of this is found in the Full Metal Panic! novels. In TSR, when Sousuke goes alone and finds out that Gauron is still alive, he expects Gauron to get his two underlings to kill him (or at least ambush him and do something of that sort). Instead, Gauron is shown to be genuinely delighted to see him, and offers Sousuke something to drink (though it has to be "self service," since... well, he has no arms or legs). Sousuke is shown to be in disbelief about the general friendliness coming from him, and tells him to "get real" when Gauron tells him he missed him. Definitely done for the effect of making Gauron a crazy Stalker with a Crush.

Late in the run of the original Lupin III manga series, Lupin encounters a scientist whose secrets he intends to steal. So, he invites him to dinner to discuss it.

During the rather light first instance, she broke into Kutou Palace with two Seishi to find the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho and Tamahome; she is captured but manages to escape, and Yui lures her ex-best friend to her with food. Miaka tries to talk some sense into her, and the trope turns straight when Miaka sees Tamahome.

The second instance is much darker. The Shinzahou had been stolen, and Miaka takes it upon herself to get it back from Nakago. When she arrives at the Seiryuu camp, she catches a delicious whiff of food and finds Nakago alone inside the tent with the item. He invites her to dinner, and things get worse after the conversation that ensues.

Nakago: You're welcome to join me if you want.Miaka: Don't make fun of me! Give me back the Shinzahou you stole from us!(Cut to Miaka eating dinner)Miaka: ... is what I'd like to say, but my stomach takes over.

Mahou Sensei Negima has Fate sit down for tea with Negi, although this quickly devolves into them berating the others' taste in beverages, until Negi throws the table and sucker punches him.

Warped almost beyond recognition in Umineko no Naku Koro ni. In the second arc's tea party, Beatrice captures Rosa and ties her to a chair before promising to grant anything for Rosa if she'll accept her existence. She then decides on her own that she knows what to grant Rosa and treats her to a lovely banquet... that is made from the remains of her siblings. She actually brags about it being made From Her Own Personal Compressor, among other things.

In One Piece, Sir Crocodile did this to Princess Vivi, exposing his entire plan to depose her father and overthrow her country of Arabasta.

In Monster, the Nazis attempting to use Nina as bait to lure Johan to them first treat her to a nice dinner at one of the members' mansion.

In Until Death Do Us Part, after Orion captures Mamoru, he tells his second-in-command to invite him to dinner. Mamoru spends the time eating up because he didn't know when he'd be able to eat next.

In episode 10 of Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?, the King of Night is preparing food, and when Ayumu and Haruna break into his apartment to try and rescue Yuu, he ends up making them stay for dinner, while also discussing with Ayumu if he likes being immortal.

One episode of Monster Rancher has Gali feeding the heroes food and water. The meal isn't rigged, but he uses the distraction to sucker-punch them.

Subverted somewhat in Watchmen, where the characters encounter Adrian Veidt during dinner. They immediately try to kill him, though. Clever.

And then he catches the reflection of one of them on a bowl, and blocks both of their attacks while sternly saying "Manners." Awesome.

Pictured above is a scene from Fantastic Four #87 (1969) in which Crystal and Sue are trying to escape Doom's castle, only to run right into the dictator's personal dining room. Despite the fact that he was trying to kill them before, he now treats them as honored guests. I guess Even Evil Has Standards.

No, that's more Doom's style in general. He may be a Card-Carrying Villain to the core, but he IS a man of honor.

In Ultimate Spider-Man, the Kingpin does this when Spider-man swings by his building for no reason while contemplating his life. Electra shows up and invites him in... where Kingpin offers him pizza.

Spiderman returns the favor later on showing up an a restaurant where Kingpin is dining, he taunts Kingpin and webs his shoes to the floor, Kingpin threatens to find Peter where he lives and show him what kind of man he is (to which he responds "are you hitting on me?"). While this is normal behavior for the Kingpin, this was a moment of growth for Peter who originally couldn't contain his rage at Kingpin's continued freedom.

By Goldfinger, the third Bond movie, it was already enough of a trope to be used in a Mad Magazine parody. 007 naturally has reservations on the quality of the Hollandaise sauce and the choice of wine.

Subverted in The Spy Who Loved Me. The villain invites Bond to join him for dinner so that Bond will be sitting right in the sights of the gun attached to the underside of the table. Bond figures it out, gets clear in time and returns the favour down the firing tube.

Justified in the Dr. No example (at least in the book): No wanted Bond to run a gauntlet in peak shape, which meant making sure that he was well-fed beforehand.

Bond himself is seriously (and understandably) disturbed by this treatment, out-of-nowhere as it is and knowing that nothing good is waiting for him. Sean Connery's Bond takes it in stride in the movie, and by now it's become almost mundane.

Robot Chicken had a funny sketch examining how awkward that dinner would be.

Pirates of the Caribbean: In the first film, Barbossa "asks" Elizabeth to have dinner with him. While other villains might do this to take advantage of the heroine, to show that they are civilized, or to just plain gloat, Barbossa is pretty original in that he's so hungry, he just wants to watch someone eat.

Parodied in the quote at the top of the page in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

In the first Spy Kids film, the spy parents eventually manage to escape from their cell and make their way to the main room, only to find Floop waiting there with a dinner and holding a timer:

Floop: Fifteen minutes to escape. With your reputations, I was expecting something a little more impressive. Finally, we can eat!

In the film Desire (1936), the Spanish criminals out for the stolen jewel, the American everyman in possession of the jewel, and the redeemed love interest who stole the jewel sit down for a classy meal. Each side suspects that the others know that it knows, so they have a nice chat about whether there has to be a war and if America will have the sense to stay out of it. Everyone's looking for an opportunity to turn it into a showdown.

In the movie Hannibal, the serial-killing antagonist kidnaps Clarice Starling's antagonistic former boss. After drugging and subduing both the man and Starling, he dresses the woman up in an elegant gown and has a fancy candlelight dinner with both of them. Then again, he's actually removing portions of the man's brain, cooking them right there at the table, and feeding them to him.

Normally this trope requires the protagonist to be captured, but when Landa invites himself into Lapadite's home to share a drink and a smoke and casually chat about missing Jews near the beginning of Inglourious Basterds, his power in occupied France makes the home a prison.

There's a scene from Snatch that goes like this: protagonist Turkish has screwed up a deal he had with London Gangster Bricktop, which cost Bricktop a lot of money. Turkish runs back to his office, hoping he can get there and take all the money he has in his safe and flee the country. Bricktop and his goons are already there. Rather than killing Turkish, cutting his body up into pieces and heading it to a group of pigs, Bricktop has Turkish make everyone some tea, has a surprisingly civilized conversation where he explains what Turkish has to do to make up for this, and then, just before leaving, forces Turkish to open his safe and give everything inside to Bricktop.

In The Black Hole, Dr. Reinhardt invites the visiting crew of the Palomino to dinner, although it's only a safe bet that he's a Mad Scientist at that point:

In Halo: First Strike the bridge crew and Spartans of the Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice are invited to refreshments by Governor Jiles of an insurgent human community while they discuss receiving repairs for their vessel. Also From My Own Personal Garden as Jiles comments about the asteroid's hydroponic gardens.

Done in some versions of Robin Hood, when Robin's band kidnaps some poor (not in the financial sense) priest or sheriff and forces him to sit down and eat (and sometimes bunk) with them, after which they empty the man's wallet for payment.

Some versions have the sheriff treated as an honoured guest, and given quite a fine time, all things considered.

In Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, the legend of "Oriza" is that Oriza invited her father's murderer into her castle to talk peace over dinner. He's afraid she'll hide a weapon in her clothes, so she suggests that they dine naked (to which he immediately agrees: Oriza is a hottie). Midway through dinner, she throws a sharpened plate at him, severing his head (making this an inversion: she's considered the hero).

Napoleon's treatment of Capt. Laurence in the fourth Temeraire book matches this to a T.

As does his treatment of Granby in the fifth, to the point that Laurence lampshades it a bit. Napoleon himself is presented as quite affable, and probably not even evil so much as... determined.

Used in the Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!)novel Duty Calls, as the antagonist, Radical Inquisitor Killian invites Ciaphas to dine with him and his ally Metheius, partially to boast but also to try to recruit him. Cain is understandably a little discomforted at eating with Killian, but plays along, commenting that Killian is the sort of megalomaniac who seems to need this sort of validation of his cleverness.

Played straight except that the person offering dinner is the protagonist hero in the Honor Harrington novel Honor Among Enemies, where she not only invites captured enemy naval officers to dine with her, but actually involves one of them in a planning session to take out a pirate.

Used by the Macellarius bloodline in a Vampire: The Requiem introduction short story. The Macellarius are designed to be uber-Affably Evil types who are enormously obese vampiric cannibals, gorging themselves on their enemies as they conquer the Requiem. In an odd twist, the Macellarius leader invites two potential converts to dinner, selects one to join the bloodline and has the other killed and eaten as a welcome feast.

Hideously subverted in A Song of Ice and Fire. Although one of the most basic moral norms in the series' world is the "guest right"—that no matter how much you want someone dead, if he eats bread and salt at your table, you must not harm him—there is someone who doesn't care in the slightest about basic morality. Cue the Red Wedding, in which no less than a viewpoint character is murdered by her brother's new father-in-law, immediately after watching her son and all his guard brutally killed.

Another subversion comes from Roose Bolton, who gives a travel-weary Brienne a clean change of clothes, a nice, warm meal, and polite conversation, and then, with just as much politeness, turns her over to a hoard of Complete Monsters to be gang-raped and killed.

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross has the secret agent protagonist captured by the evil billionaire who's trying to resurrect a shoggoth. The next morning, he and his lovely CIA agent contact are treated to breakfast by the billionaire and his wife. Justified as the billionaire has invoked the tropes of James Bond movies as a geas. He plans to keep the agent locked in the trope of the solitary agent going it alone against the megalomaniac until no one else can possibly intervene, at which point he breaks the geas, kills the agent, and takes over the world before anyone can stop him.

In Ranger's Apprentice, in the fifth book Will stops Skandians from raiding by inviting them to a dinner with the lords and ladies at the castle. Not played straight, but the same tension exists for the situation.

In Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks, this trope is subverted when the protagonist is sealed in a chamber beneath the ruling council of a society he was visiting as a punishment. The council begin a huge feast and he is slowly drowned in their fecal matter.

In Richard Connell's short story, The Most Dangerous Game, General Zaroff treats Rainsford to a glass of champagne and a filet mignon, although this is before he find out the Zaroff is a madman who hunts humans for sport.

A very well justified example in the Replica series. The organization was very nice to Chris when they captured him. Because if they could corrupt him, they'd have an agent close to Amy and Andy. And if he uses the opportunity to escape, they really don't care. He's Not Worth Killing.

A pervasive trope in The Hunger Games trilogy. Meals in the Capitol are so opulent that it would take days to gather the ingredients in Katniss' home district, where starvation is common. The implication is that the Capitol is so overwhelmingly powerful that any rebellion will be easily crushed, possibly by starvation. The delicious meals the Tributes are given are a reminder that they'd better play along.

Older Than Feudalism: Joseph subjects his brothers to something rather like this in the Book of Genesis. Joseph is a good guy who intends his brothers no harm, but the brothers, who had previously sold him into slavery, think this is what happened when they realize who he was. It's also extended in time, with the brothers dining and staying with Joseph twice before he tells them who he is.

Inverted in Doctor Who, "Boom Town," where the hero (The Doctor) invites the villain (Margaret) to dinner, in which she pleads for his mercy.

Said pleading being interrupted somewhat by her attempting to assassinate him three times. He plays it cool, though—he is The Doctor after all.

Also done in "The End of Time Part One", where minor villain Joshua Naismith captures major villain the Master (being stupid enough to think he can hold an insane genius, and at this point super-powered, Time Lord captive) who he treats to a Christmas dinner of Turkey. Due to the unusual circumstances of the Master's recent resurrection, his intense hunger means he devours the whole turkey in a matter of seconds.

Leoben's revenge against Starbuck in the third season is quite a prolonged version of this trope.

At four months, that's not even the longest one. That record goes to Cavil holding the newly-resurrected Ellen hostage for eighteen months after Saul killed her.

At the start of the third season of Lost, Ben treats Kate to a pleasant breakfast on the beach, explaining that he wanted to give her something nice as "the next few weeks are going to be very unpleasant."

In the alternate timeline afterlife, Keamy is a loan shark putting the screws to Sayid's brother. At the forced meeting where he threatens Sayid, he offers to cook him up some eggs, any style.

A fun slight variation on this trope also occurs in the season 5 finale, "The Incident," because the episode opens with a seemingly innocuous scene of two men having breakfast together on the beach, and it isn't until the end of the scene that the viewer finds out that the 2 men are actually mortal enemies (or should I say immortal enemies) who have been trying to kill each other for centuries.

Towards the end of the second season of Heroes, Sylar breaks into Dr. Mohinder Suresh's apartment in an attempt to revive their Ho Yay subtext from Season One force the geneticist to find a cure for Sylar's loss of superpowers. Sylar takes Mohinder's adopted daughter hostage and gives Mohinder a suggestive phone call ("Hello, Mohinder..."), voicing vague threats. But when a horrified Mohinder arrives home, Sylar greets him amiably and pleasantly asks Mohinder to sit down and offers him breakfast.

You know what makes the scene even better? Sylar's Beard girlfriend makes the breakfast. It's truly amazing to watch how much chemistry Sylar has with Mohinder instead of with the woman he made out with last episode.

And in season 4, Sylar crashes the Petrelli's Thanksgiving dinner, and while he had sworn to kill Angela, he first comments that he's starving and practically inhales an entire pie. He's about to carry out his threat to kill Angela when Peter intervenes in time.

In the Season 4 finale of Supernatural, the angels kidnap Dean and put him in "Heaven's Waiting Room," as Dean calls it: an ornately decorated Victorian-style room with a couple of bowls of bacon cheeseburgers (one of Dean's favorite foods, though it's never directly stated) so Zachariah can convince him to sit back and let the Apocalypse happen. Castiel eventually rebels and gets Dean out of there.

Also featured in the pre-finale episode of season 5, when Dean meets up with Death in a pizza restaurant. BTW, the pizza there is really delicious! Turns out the character in question has a thing for cheap food.

In Stargate SG-1, the episode "Unnatural Selection," after the Replicators capture SG-1, they allow the team a night's sleep and treat them to a really nice and extremely creepy meal. The Replicators don't hide the fact that they're only keeping SG-1 alive so that they can enjoy mind raping them ("Could there be any other reason we would keep you alive?") so the quality of the meal doesn't make any sense in-story, unless the replicators were basically 'seasoning SG-1's minds' with it; but the trope probably just leaked out of the writers' brains.

Happens twice in Stargate Atlantis. First in the pilot episode when the Wraith Keeper introduces herself to Sumner; she offers him food which he refuses, prompting her to wonder why would he resist his hunger when it's "distasteful". Predictably, the corpse of her previous meal is still sitting at the table. The second time it happens much later in the series when the team sits down to talk with Todd who offers them a fruit bowl, saying that they picked it up on their travels and hoping that they're "as delicious as the farmers who grew them".

During the Horatio Hornblower TV movie Loyalty, the traitor invites Hornblower over for dinner after having taken him and a landing party prisoner. He intimates that there is no way he could have caused all the various problems that have been plaguing the British forces in the movie, most notably the French forces finding out key parts of the Brits' plans. Hornblower states that he needs to know who the traitor is, as it would be cruel to let him die not knowing who betrayed him.

Mari and Takumi get this treatment in Kamen Rider 555 when summoned to Smart Brain to convince them to hand over the Faiz Gear.

In Kamen Rider W, Sonozaki Ryubee thinks it's a great idea to have one last family dinner before he starts the Gaia Impact. This includes Saeko (who recently teamed up with Isaka to betray him and was nearly assassinated by his forces), his alienated wife Shroud (who has been working to destroy him ever since he stole her son), and Philip (half of the Kamen Rider that's been battling his forces all series, who he mindwiped and used as a tool to make Gaia Memories). Oh, and he's going to kill Philip for the Gaia Impact.

"Would it kill you to be civil?
I've been patient, I've been gracious
And this mountain is covered with wolves
Hear them howling, my hungry children
Maybe you should stay and have another drink and think about me and you "

The cover of the Forgotten Realms module For Duty and Deity shows Waukeen in this situation, at a banquet table being attended to by hideous demons while Graz'zt - the villain of the module - raises a toast behind her. Rescuing Waukeen is the goal of the players' in the main story.

Sort of used in Final Fantasy VI. Halfway through the game, Emperor Gesthal invites the party to his castle to have a feast and reassures them that his kingdom is too ravaged from the Espers' attack to fight the party, so he wants to help them calm the Espers. He also tells the party that Kefka will be punished for his crimes. This is just a big fat lie of course since later on, Kefka attacks a village to get more Espers and he meets up with Geshtal on the Floating Continent so they can get more power.

Invoked in Final Fantasy XII when the new emperor of the Archadian Empire takes one of his new subjects out drinking. He's presumed to be a villain by the characters, but really is making a genuine effort to establish a personal relationship with his less than willing citizens.

In The Order of the Stick near the end of the siege of Azure City, Haley and Belkar attempt to retrieve Roy's body from the battlefield but find that he and O-Chul are guests at a tea party hosted by the extremely powerful but childlike Monster in the Darkness. (Yes, Roy is dead. O-Chul is paralyzed. It's that sort of tea party.) Haley and Belkar have to carefully play along through the meal (and Belkar has to cook the meal) before they can attempt to escape.

Played almost perfectly straight when Elan's father invites Elan and Haley to a formal dinner, except for the fact that Elan hasn't realized his dad is a villain yet.

Blade Bunny: When your would-be assassin is a hot chick in a bunnygirl outfit and disarmed to boot you can probably be excused for deciding to indulge in this trope.

Subverted in Storm Hawks where the scary mobster who is proud of being a Big Eater offers the captured Big Guy food that is poisonous or rotten and ends up in an eating contest with the equally omnivorous captive.

Dexters Laboratory short "Dial M For Monkey" has the supervillain Simian who invites Monkey to dine with him and proceeds to seduce him to help him destroy the human race.

The protagonists think they're experiencing this trope in Avatar: The Last Airbender when they are arrested in Omashu. King Bumi proclaims their sentence: "THROW THEM... a feast!" It turns out they're actually being tested by Bumi, who is a Trickster Mentor and Aang's childhood friend.

Is this subverted or played straight in The Simpsons when OFF are treated to a meal by aliens who owned a book called How To Cook For / Forty / For Forty Humans?

1973/74 Superfriends episode "Menace of the White Dwarf". Raven does this with Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog after he accidentally captures them, including having his android doubles serve them a meal and showing them around his base.

Word Girl has Tobey, who is determined to take her out for ice-cream if he ever defeats her.

Played with in the Powerpuff Girls episode "Supper Villain." Mr. Smith wishes to melt Professor Utonium's head with a ray-gun, while his wife expects (more like demands) the good Professor (and everyone else) to dine.

This is seen a few times in Phineas and Ferb when Perry the Platypus walks in on Dr. Doofenshmirtz while in the middle of an evil scheme. Sometimes Doof lets Perry sit down and watch his musical numbers and even offered him cake on his birthday.

In episode 15, Doofenshmirtz lets Perry sit in his waiting area and read magazines while waiting for him to finish building his "-Inator".

In A Very Possible Christmas, when Kim Possible, the Possible family and Shego rescue Ron Stoppable and Drakken when they were stranded near the North Pole due to Drakken's latest scheme backfiring, Drakken invites the Possibles to join him for Christmas dinner. Not that he's gloating or anything, but just because it's Christmas.

Jimmy Neutron and Jet Fusion are once offered a meal this way by Professor Calamitous before Beautiful Gorgeous tries to kill them.